The present invention relates to a stalked crop harvesting header for an agricultural vehicle.
Stalked cropped harvesting headers are formed to pull stalks downward between a pair of deck plates that are spaced in such a manner that the stalk can substantially freely move through the channel formed by the deck plates while the corn head or other crop material heads are retained by the deck plates. Different aspects of such harvesting headers have been described. For example, WO 2012/152 866 describes the snapping rollers that are used to grasp and pull stalks downward through the channel. EP 2 412 228 describes a header wherein the spacing between the deck plates is adjustable to optimize the operation of the header. These documents describe headers that are row sensitive. Row sensitive headers are headers that operate correctly only when the channels of the multiple harvesting units in the header are aligned with the rows of stalked crop on the field. As a result of aligning the channel with the stalked crop, the stalked crop can enter the channel while the stalked crop is still rooted in the ground. In conventional row sensitive stalked crop harvesting headers, this ensures correct operation of the header.
A drawback of the known crop harvesting headers is that they only perform correctly when the rows of crop are aligned with the channels of the harvesting units. This places a burden on the driver of the agricultural vehicle because care should be taken that the vehicle is steered so that the channels are constantly aligned with the rows of stalked crop during the harvesting. Another drawback is that stalked crop can be sown in rows with different spacing. To be able to harvest rows with different spacings, different headers are required wherein the distance between the channels match the spacing between the rows of crop. To overcome these drawbacks of row sensitive harvesting, row non-sensitive harvesting headers have been proposed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,119,443 describes a row non-sensitive harvesting header. A drawback of this header is that the mechanical structure is complex so that the header is expensive. Furthermore, because stalks are cut from the ground surface before entering the channel, the guiding of the stalks proves to be difficult resulting in the possibility of congestion of an entrance of the channel. In this context, tests have shown that stalks can experience a high resistance against entering the channel and entering the snapping rollers. Due to this resistance, the stalks choke the front end of the channels thereby ceasing the correct operation of the header.
US 2014/005 994 describes a row non-sensitive header wherein the stalks are caught at a higher level thereby preventing the stalks to fall down after being cut from the ground. This improves the movement of the stalks in between the snapping rollers and the channel, however it makes the header significantly more complex and expensive.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a row non-sensitive stalked crop harvesting header with a higher operational reliability and an improved structure.